MarksLife

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Dale passed away

Dale died this past Sunday. I knew Dale, but not on a personal level, yet her death has touched and saddened me. Dale was the mother of a friend I trained with. I haven’t trained with Susan in quite some while. Yet Dale death has really saddened my soul.

I went to the funeral heard the eulogy’s but before I ever got to the funeral I was grieving yet I didn’t know why. The next day I went with a friend of mine to visit Susan and her family (shiver call) and got to meet Susan’s sister, farther and other friends, all beautiful people.

As I sat there, I though to myself, “It wasn’t my lose.” Yet I was hurting, hurting badly. It was easy to be saddened when you looked into the eyes of Dale’s loved ones. There was such a sense of lose and I found an emotional connection that almost brought me to tears.

Yet my grieving was personal, I was grieving and yet I didn’t know why.

Dale died in a terribly violent way. She was jogging on one of the most peaceful jogging paths there is. This path travels north south across long Island. Along the way one must cross streets that go east west. Dale didn’t look up, she runs sort of looking down and she just didn’t look up, she got to an intersection and ran right into an oncoming car, she died almost instantly.

The morning Dale was struck I was at a race out east, if I wasn’t at that race I would have been on the same jogging path as Dale, I surely would have said hello, I say hello to almost everyone. Dale would have looked up, god all she needed to do was look up and she would still be with us today. I know I probably couldn’t have saved Dale; there were others on that path who knew Dale.

But I keep wondering god why didn’t she look up why couldn’t a stick fall a bird chirp, anything to make her look up.

I feel Dale died on my jogging path, I love that trail, I run on it every chance I get. When I’m not running I’m taking pictures of the lakes and birds in Bethpage Park.

I lost someone who shared a placed I love to go. If two people share the same space even if they didn’t really know each other, they are connected by that space; her presence is part of that place.

I lost a fellow runner who shared a place we both loved to travel on. The trail I run will have one less person to share a hello with and I will feel a loss forever.